Family Secrets

“How was she today, Maggie?” I ask, dropping my work bag, keys, and coat in the entryway.

“She’s struggling.  She just had a few sips of soup,” the hospice worker says.

“How long – I mean do you have a sense of - “

“It’s hard to say exactly.  But not long.  Days at most?  Maybe hours only.”

I nod and feel a tightening in my throat.  

“Don’t be afraid to give her a few units of the morphine if she seems uncomfortable.  That’s the most loving thing you can do for her now.”

“Okay.  Well, thanks.  Have a good night.”

“You, too. See you in the morning.”   

“Right.”

She puts her coat on, grabs her bag, and leaves.  After I watch her pull away I cross to the rented hospital bed we set up in the living room a few days before.  I sit in the chair next to Virgie’s head.

She is thin.  Skeletal would not be an exaggeration.  I cringe, remembering an expression our father had always used to describe people in her condition - “like death eatin’ crackers.”  She’s on oxygen now.  The pump whirrs softly and rhythmically.  When she feels me sit down, her eyelids flutter open, and she turns her head.

“Oh, there you are, Amy.”  A thin smile flickers across her ashen lips.

“How are you doing?”

“Other than dying?”

“Oh, Mom.”

“Hmmm.  You know, that still sounds funny sometimes.  You always called me Virgie.  Right up until – when was it again?  Someone told you about us?”

“I was twelve.” I sigh.  This conversation is not new.  “You were twenty-eight.  It was Genevieve.”

“Oh, yes.  That girl.  Always such a busybody.”

“Still is.”

I remind her that thirty years before, our cousin Genevieve had whispered the secret in my ear at a family reunion.  She had it from a “reliable source” that I was not Virgie’s little sister, but in fact her daughter.  As the story went, I was the result of a teenage relationship between Virgie and one of the workers at our father’s barrel factory.  

At first I wrote it off to Genevieve’s fondness for idle talk and gossip.  But after a few sleepless nights puzzling over odd clues and fuzzy childhood memories, I cornered Virgie, told her what I had heard, and asked her to confirm or deny it.  She sighed, then sat me down and explained that the story was true.

Of course, I was curious about my biological father.  When Virgie spoke of him, there was sadness in her voice, but I felt a ripple of anger below the surface.  “Oh, yes.  Calvin.  He did work at Father’s factory.  We thought we were in love and would be together forever.  But when Father discovered our plans, he ran Calvin off.  I never saw him again.  We didn’t know it yet, but I was already pregnant.”   

She told me that her mother had passed away with tuberculosis very close to the time I was born, about nine months after Calvin left.  Father and Virgie decided that since the truth about me would bring shame on the family, they would raise me as a younger sister.  As a member of the local business owner's association and a deacon at our Methodist church, Father's main concern was protecting his image and reputation.

Virgie said they had planned to have an honest conversation with me when they felt the time was right.  But the years flew by, as they have a way of doing.  Only a tight group of close family members and acquaintances knew the truth about me, but the whisperings eventually caught up to us before the right time for that talk came around.

“Oh, yes.  Now I remember.  You were confused and angry at first.  But you settled down.”

“I still called you ‘Virgie’ up until Roger and I got married ten years later and you moved in with us. Remember? That’s when I started calling you Mom.”

“Uh-huh.   That sounds right.  Well, I am sorry, dear, but I’m afraid I’m out of gas right now.  Would you mind if I close my eyes for a while?”

“Of course, Mom.  I’ll be around.  Just let me know if you need anything.”  

Growing up, Virgie loved and cared for me as well as any mother ever could.  She was an uncomplaining helpmate for our difficult and selfish father.  She somehow managed to maintain at least an outwardly cheerful disposition, while tirelessly completing all the myriad tasks required of a woman of the house in those days.  

Father and I never developed a functional relationship.  I wanted to love him and to feel loved. I would have welcomed it, but for some reason Father never reciprocated.  Maybe I reminded him of our late mother?  Or maybe he saw me as an inconvenient mouth to feed?  I wouldn’t know the full truth behind his feelings until after Virgie passed away.

A few hours later, Virgie wakes up and calls for me.  She needs water.  She looks worse.  I slide my arm behind her neck, hold her head up, and put the glass to her lips.  She takes a few labored sips then looks at up at me and nods with the flicker of a smile.  I ease her head back onto the pillow, set the glass on her side table and sit once again in the chair.

The oxygen pump whispers and clicks hypnotically in the corner.  Her breathing is labored.  A small sound catches in her throat and a frustrated frown wrinkles her forehead.  I think about the morphine, but after a minute or two she seems better, and I decide against it.  A heaviness builds in my chest and pushes up into my throat, then my ears.  My eyes swell with tears.

“Mom.  I must ask you something.  After Father sent Calvin away, when you realized you were pregnant, did you want to contact him?  Wouldn’t he have wanted to know about me?”

“Amy.”  One of her hands flutters up then slowly lands on my wrist, light as a whisper.  “There is a little more.”

“What, Mom? What is it?”

“I’m sorry.  I can’t,” she says.  “Can’t say it.  In my closet.  A box.  Journals.  Look there.”  I begin to stand, but her hand tightens surprisingly on my arm.  “Not now dear.  Later.”  Her hand pats my wrist gently.  She closes her eyes. “After.”

I sit beside Virgie past midnight, into the small still hours of the morning, hanging on every breath.  The last time I remember seeing is 3:57.  

I awake with a start.  The clock says 6:14.  My pulse quickens and pounds in my chest.  I sit up and put a hand on Virgie’s forehead.  Only slightly warm.  I lay two fingers along her throat under her ear.  Nothing.  I bend close to her face until her lips brush my ear.  Nothing.  I hold myself as still as possible – listening, feeling.   Nothing.  She is gone.  I press my forehead to her belly and sob.

My day is filled with ambulances, funeral arrangements, and phone calls to family and friends.  I arrive back home in the mid-afternoon, grief-stricken and spent.  I take a shower then lay down and sleep for a couple of hours. 

When I wake up it’s nearly sunset.  My eyes open but I don’t move.  Maybe the events of the last twelve hours are all a bad dream.  Maybe if I hold still enough nothing will change.  Late afternoon light sifts through the curtains of our room and falls softly on the floor between fuzzy shadows.  

I spend another hour grieving, then I sit up, dry my eyes, blow my nose, and remember – the journals.  They had come to mind several times during the day, but I had been so busy with the unthinkable requirements of preparing to say good-bye to my mother, I hadn’t had the time to go looking for them.

I stop in the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face, then head upstairs to her bedroom.  The space is sparsely furnished with nothing new or fashionable, exactly as anyone who knew her would have expected.  Her twin bed is covered by a quilt she made from sewing scraps.  The colonial style side table matches her vanity and a little dresser.  It is the same furniture she brought with her from father’s house when she moved in with us fifteen years before.  A framed print of the Last Supper hangs above her vanity.

I cross to the closet, open the door, and look on the floor under her dresses.  I had seen the box a few times in the past. It was labelled “Journals”. I considered it personal and had left it alone.  I take a deep breath, get down on my knees, and drag the box out of the closet into the light. 

I sit on the floor with the box for a long time. I look at it, trying to prepare myself for whatever I might find inside.  Finally, I take a deep breath, open the box and start sorting through the journals.  

Fairly quickly, I find the range of journals from around the time Virgie’s mother was dying, which would also have included her relationship with Calvin, her pregnancy, and my birth.  I read the entries voraciously, consuming her words like a starving person consumes a meal.   Most of them are the quiet thoughts of a teenage girl at the end of the day – friendships, hobbies, school activities, holidays, self-reflection.  

However, around the time when her mother began to suffer with a severe case of tuberculosis, I noticed a darkness begin to encroach on Virgie’s words and thoughts.  The endearing innocence so present in her fourteen- and early fifteen-year-old entries fades, and is replaced by darker musings, increased self-doubt, and even self-loathing. 

Her writing voice brightens considerably again as she chronicles the early days of her interactions with Calvin.  He was a worker in her father’s factory, where Virgie also worked some days after school, helping with filing, bookkeeping and correspondence.  As fate would have it, she and Calvin felt a mutual attraction and were soon taking walks and sharing stolen moments in the shadows of the storehouses and work rooms of the factory, out of sight from prying eyes. 

Virgie’s father forbade her to date or be alone with boys, so whatever time she and Calvin had together was always brief and fraught with the fear of discovery.  Her details about their private moments were innocent – nothing beyond holding hands, sharing their most personal hopes and dreams, staring deeply into each other’s eyes, and sharing the rare kiss before parting.  Virgie came to know Calvin as a trustworthy, caring, funny, affectionate young man. Their relationship seemed destined for a happy ending.

Roger finds me in Virgie’s room on the floor when he comes home. He had cut a work trip short and returned early after my call that morning.. 

“Hey Honey.” He joins me on the floor and gathers me in his arms.  “You doing okay?”  

“Yeah.  I guess.”  The comfort of his embrace brings me back to the world of our home and the fresh, glaring absence of my mother.  I weep again, sharing with him my last moments at her side.  I tell him about my day, and what I have found in the journals so far.

“I’m sorry, Honey, but I need to do this right now.  There’s leftover meatloaf and mashers in the fridge if that sounds good.”

“You do what you need to do.  I’ll see you later.”  He smiles and kisses me on the forehead then stands and leaves the room.

I return to the journals and find that when I paused to speak with Roger, I was only days away from the beginning of some highly disturbing entries.  I am horrified and outraged by Virgie’s new revelations.  

Compelled to continue, I read on.  My shock and dismay grow with every line.  When I finally read through and beyond where Virgie documented the way Father dealt with Calvin and the plans about how I would be raised, I am on fire with anger.

I stand up and throw the journal to the floor, then sweep out into the living room on a full tank of outrage.  Roger is sitting in front of the TV watching Jeopardy and finishing his dinner.

“What’s the matter, Amy?”

“Listen, I‘ve got to go over to Father’s right now.  He doesn’t know about Mom yet.”

“You haven’t called him?”

“No.  I was so angry at him this morning after she died that I couldn’t.  And now that I’ve read her journals, I – well, it’s a long story.  I’ll explain everything when I get back.  I won’t be gone long.”  I stride over to the entryway and grab my coat and purse.

“You want some company?”

“No.  Thank you.  I need to do this alone.”

“Okay.  Please be careful.”    

A few minutes later, I pull up at Father’s house and get out.  I storm up the walk and enter through the front door.

“Father?” 

He shuffles around the corner from the kitchen, bent over his tennis ball footed walker.  He stops and looks up at me over his bifocals.

“Amy?  What’s going on?”

“Did you ever love us?”

“What?”

“Virgie and me.  I want to know if you ever loved us.”

“Amy, what’s gotten in to you?” he asks, his rheumy eyes twitching uneasily.

“Well, for starters, Virgie died this morning.”

“Oh.  Oh, no.  I’m so sorry.  Come in.  Do you want to sit with me.”

“No, Father.  I can’t.  I want to get this out while I can still stand to be in the same room with you.”

“Now, listen,” he says.  He pushes his glasses back on his nose and glares at me.  “You may be a grown woman and all, but –“

“SHUT UP!!”  My voice made the crystal in the china cabinet jingle.  For once in my life, I had my father’s undivided attention.  “I have read Virgie’s journals.  Did you even know she kept a journal?  No?  Shocker.”  

I pause and try to gather my emotions.  My pulse is racing.  “I don’t even know where to start with you.  You are a living, breathing monster!   How have you been able to live with yourself all these years after having sex with your own daughter and getting her pregnant?”

“Now, now Amy.  You don’t know what it was like.  My wife was sick.  I was so lonely –“

I stalk forward, aggressively closing the distance between us in three steps.  I put my face directly in front of his.  “I. SAID. SHUT. UP. YOU. OLD. PERVERT!!!”   He stumbles backward and is lucky enough that one of the dining chairs catches his fall.  He sits down hard, silent and shaking.

I am having an out of body experience.  I am a vessel of volcanic rage. I bend at the waste and point my finger like a dagger at his nose.

“You made Virgie pregnant, then killed a boy who was so in love with her that he was willing to run away and marry her even after she told him the truth about everything.”

“That boy Calvin is your father, Amy!  And I never killed  – “

“Don’t bullshit ME old man!  I’m sure you assumed that Virgie and Calvin had sex.  Well, they never did!  Then when you caught them planning to elope, you said you were going to take him for a ride and drove off with him.  A few days later, when she asked you where Calvin was, you said ‘Don’t worry about him.  Dead men tell no tales.’  So, what was that about?”

“That was just a figure of speech, Amy!  I didn’t –“

“Then you went on to say – ‘And if you know what’s good for you and that baby you’re pregnant with, you’ll keep your mouth shut, too!’  If that’s not a threat, I don’t know what is! 

"Most of my life I thought Calvin was my father, but now I find out that’s not true. Instead my father and my grandfather are the same person.  You animal!”  

I am shrieking.  I pause again until I am calm enough to say the final words I ever plan to speak to him.

“Now I have to go home and try to tell Roger about this.  And then I have to learn how to live as the me I really am, now that I know the truth.  So, thanks for that.  Know this.  I have never loved you.  But now I absolutely hate you.  I hope you can live whatever is left of your miserable life knowing that.”

I turn on my heel and head for the door.  As I grab the knob and swing it open, one last thought occurs to me.  I turn and point at the wreckage of what was once a human being.

“And don’t you even think about darkening the door at Virgie’s funeral!  I swear to you, if you show your disgusting face there, I will get up in front of everyone and tell them the whole truth about you. Who knows, someone may even open an investigation into Calvin’s death!  So, this is not good-bye.  It’s good riddance.  I will never speak to you again.”

With a powerful slam of the door, I leave that chapter of my life behind.  On the way home to see Roger I feel exhausted, liberated and burdened.  It’s going to be a long night.